Wicked, Pretty Things
by oh-masochist
Summary: Late one night, Remus finds a girl alone, cold, and bleeding in the woods. He brings her back to James's to stay for the summer. But Sirius doesn't trust everything she says. He knows something's up. And she's hiding more than she's letting on.


It had happened on a Sunday.

From only lies she'd been bred, and truth was hard to find. But there were often times when she would sit and stare at things and not see them. In her own mind, nothing could touch her. Not her parents, not her siblings, her teachers, or her "friends." When she closed her eyes, she entered a world that was entirely her own, filled with colors and high purple clouds with bright green grass and nothing but friendliness all around from talking forest animals and big sunflowers with nothing to say but nice things.

She could enter it anytime she needed. Simply, she'd think of it, and then find herself surrounded by the brightness. And when she didn't want to see what was in front of her, she'd closed her eyelids tightly over her retinas and cross her eyes in her head and the sensation that came with such disorient made her feel like she might not even be physically there at all.

But not even snapping her eyes shut, screwing up her face, and thinking so hard of that place could have put her anywhere different than she knew she was. She sat in between two closely planted trees, damp and subsequently, muddy from the dirt beneath her. Her torn clothes barely covered her, and she shivered in the wind's icy grasp. Hugging her knees to her tight, she wondered how this had happened.

Not in that way. She _knew_ what had happened, couldn't get it out of her head. But she wondered how she could have _let_ this happen.

She could still hear the screaming. Her ears rang with the memory of it.

Darkness swam in front of her eyes like black fog. She reached up gingerly to feel the back of her head. It was not easy for her fingers to fit through the tangles of her wet hair, matted with dirt and blood. She brought her hand back around to her face, sighing when she realized she'd stopped bleeding at least. _At least_. She didn't think anything could get any worse.

And then it started to snow.

She sat frozen with disbelief, willing herself not to spontaneously combust. After all that had happened, the ONLY way to make anything worse was to be even _more_ cold and even_ more_ wet.

And then she couldn't help but to laugh. She laughed a little at first, and then harder, and then so hard that she shook with the efforts of it. The bitter laughing didn't last long, however, before it switched very quickly into violent sobbing. She might have cried for hours, but she'd never have known the distance.

Suddenly she looked up quickly in front of her. All around were trees, so thick that she could hardly see anything, despite the lightness now starting to spread from the eastern part of the sky. She heard the noise again, the reason she'd stopped laughing. A crunch of leaves, and some rustling.

She thought to herself,_ Just some animal. _But she couldn't be sure.__

Though she tried in vain to convince herself that it _was_ merely a small forest animal, she knew deep in her head that it wasn't, for she'd not heard or seen any animals through her entire trek in the forest.

She heard it again, closer and to her right. And then again. And again. She started panicking now, the distance between her and the noise lessening simultaneously as her each beat of her heart became closer and closer together. She heard it even closer now, sounding as if it were only a few feet away. Her heart jumped as she whipped to her right, reeling at the fact that the menace was so close now, right next to her, and still invisible. She waited with baited breath.

And then suddenly, from between the trees, out from under the cloak of night, and into her vision staggered a man.

The first thing she noticed was that he was rather tall and thin. As he stumbled closer she realized with a sigh of relief that he in fact, wasn't a man, but only a boy her age, maybe a little older. His skin was sallow and his face, colorless. As her eyes lingered down his body, she noticed with a jolt that he was bleeding quite profusely from his left temple. His eyes half closed, his clothes torn, he didn't notice her.

"Hullo?" She said cautiously.

Surprised, his eyes flashed to find hers in the darkness. He stood stock-still with his mouth slightly open.

Finally, he spoke. "Who are you?" His voice was slightly hoarse as he fumbled over the words.

The girl bit her cheek as she answered "Lux."

He didn't give his name, but merely said, "What're you doing out here?" He moved haggardly toward her, and for a brief second, she wondered dully if she should be moving away in caution. A bleeding stranger in the forest may or may not have the best intentions. But then again, she too was a bleeding stranger. But then _again_.

While coming closer, she could see him better, and she realized as he sat down that he was a modestly handsome boy.

"I got kicked out."

His eyes widened as he took in her appearance. "Must have been a hard kick." He joked as he said this, but she knew when she diverted her eyes that he'd understand the seriousness of what he'd said. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I just.. I was only joking, but-"

"No, it's okay." She forced herself to look him in the eyes again.

They sat in uncomfortable silence until he spoke again moments later.

"So can you... I mean, do you have somewhere to go?"

He watched in mild horror as tears began to slip down her cheeks, streaking the dirt and blood. She hugged her legs closer and gripped tightly to her head, wincing after realizing it was till tender.

She shook her head.

He looked thoughtful. "My friend has a house... not far from here. Just that way," his finger raised to point to their immediate right, "I'm staying with him and his family until school starts back up and... maybe you could come back with me."

When she didn't answer or even lift her head, he added quickly, "At least to get you cleaned up."

Looking at him finally, she attempted a smile and nodded. This boy seemed harmless, as harmless as a bleeding person in the woods in the middle of night possibly _can_ seem. Which shouldn't be harmless if you think about it. In fact, if you **really** consider the situation, you'd find that trusting someone who appears out of thin air in the dead of night, bloody and muddy and obviously not completely okay..

Well, _that's_ just blatantly obvious.


End file.
